Reportedly, a meeting titled ‘Preparing for Disease X’ was spotted by the observers in the WEF agenda. Experts believe that the mysterious Disease X could cause 20 times more deaths than a coronavirus pandemic.
The cause of mysterious Disease X is currently unknown, yet it is considered a serious microbial threat. The World Health Organization added Disease X in 2017 to a short list of pathogens deemed a top priority for research, alongside known killers like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Ebola.
As per WHO, it is to enable early cross-cutting R&D preparedness that is also relevant for an unknown disease.
The humanitarian crisis sparked by the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa was a wake-up call. Despite decades of research, there were no products ready to deploy in time to save more than 11,000 lives. In response, the WHO created an R&D Blueprint to accelerate the development of a range of tools for “priority diseases.”
Covid-19, caused by a novel coronavirus, was an example of a Disease X when it touched off the pandemic at the end of 2019. The vast reservoir of viruses circulating in wildlife are seen as a likely source of more such diseases. That’s because of their potential to spill over and infect other species, including humans, giving rise to an infection against which people will have no immunity.In a book, the former Chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, Kate Bingham, issued a stark warning about the potential for the next pandemic to emerge from a vast pool of unknown viruses, potentially claiming as many lives as the Spanish Flu, which killed an estimated 50 million people.Co-authored with vaccine expert Tim Hames, an excerpt from the book published in the Daily Mail outlines their concerns about the next pandemic and calls for enhanced pandemic preparedness.
Recalling the devastating impact of the 1918-19 flu pandemic, Bingham and Hames note, “The 1918-19 flu pandemic killed at least 50 million people worldwide, twice as many as were killed in World War I.” They emphasise that a similar death toll could result from one of the countless viruses already in existence, many of which are constantly replicating and mutating.
With inputs from agencies